PREVIEW: Cobra Golf King LTD driver, pictures, video

Cobra Golf wants you to see what its new driver is made of, quite literally.

The company announced Tuesday that it's brining back the King Cobra name with a new driver, called the King LTD, which will launch in November.

The club boasts an interesting selling point. The company calls it the Spaceport, which is a 16-gram, somewhat translucent weight that, when inserted into sole of the driver, is a window of sorts into the inside of the driver head. When the Spaceport isn't screwed in, Cobra has taken advantage of the feature to print various graphics on the inside of the club head.

That part is intriguing, but the view isn't a playable feature, and it's not as though you're going to be taking the weight in and out all the time.

Ultimately, the Spaceport is an aesthetically unique piece of the driver design, but it works in concert with the rest of the materials that make up the product. The company says there are 28 grams of weight strategically poisitoned in and around the circumference that work together to move the club's center of gravity beneath the Y-axis of the driver head, measured as a perpendicular line through the center of the club face to the back of the head.

The company says the Spaceport also allows them to avoid using a glue typically found in drivers to catch debris from manufacturing, saving 4 grams they instead positioned in the back of the club.

Cobra engineers also saved weight in other places. The crown is made of what's called TeXtreme carbon composite, a durable, strong material that the company says is 20 percent lighter than more common carbon fiber. The 811 titanium face saved 10 grams of weight.

The driver's hosel structure is lower as well, allowing for a slight improvement in the club's center of gravity.

With the finished product, Cobra claims the King LTD has the lowest and further back center of gravity in a driver on the market. That leads to more forgiveness and distance for players who struggle to get the ball in the air, especially those, like so many, who hit low on the club face with most clubs in their bag.

When it comes to innovation, equipment makers are looking for incremental improvements. A millimeter of center of gravity movement here, a little there. The impact is a few yards with each move. Compare those movements to drivers made even five years ago and the difference is substantial, meaning more yards for you off the tee and, likely, more forgiveness.

The King LTD driver can also be adjusted for loft and lie angle, including ranging from 9 to 12 degrees of loft and three draw settings, giving eight options. A pro model offers five lofts and three fade settings. Both come with a stock Aldila Rogue Black 60g graphite shaft, with custom options available.

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